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Reviews
Confetti (2006)
A forgotten gem
I loved this film when it came out although it was a massive flop. It's hilarious! I guess people were expecting another kind of film. But if you're a fan of British humour, you're gonna love it. And it's packed with some of the (now) biggest names in British comedy. It's an absolute hoot from start to finish!
Lost Patrol (1929)
A Lost Film
Do not be fooled by the other review that appears here. This film does not survive. I wrote to MacIntyre when I first read this enquiring where he saw the film and he replied in a very evasive manner. A few years later the reports of his death appeared in the press and it appears he made a habit of producing fake reviews of lost films, as per his wikipedia entry: "MacIntyre reviewed dozens of older and silent motion pictures on IMDb.com, including a large number of lost films which he claimed to have seen under circumstances the details of which he could not reveal. Some silent film critics and fans believe the reviews to be elaborate jokes, others have accused MacIntyre of muddying the historical record by publishing fake reviews."
The Passionate Adventure (1924)
Lord's impotence cured by a spell in the East End
Forget about the Hitchcock connection - this is a Graham Cutts film, and jolly good it is too...
Clive Brook is unable to get it up for his wife Drusilla (who would fancy anyone with that name anyway?). They are distant and stiff with each other - maybe a spell at the Front has left him less than capable in the bedroom department, or maybe they just don't fancy each other any more. Anyway, Clive takes himself off to the East End and gets involved with a pretty young waif (it's all very pure and spiritual, so don't get too upset - he take on a role as her protector). The waif has a bully-boy boyf who is part of the criminal low-life of the district. He is not suffering from impotency issues... especially as he's being played by the extremely sexy Victor MacClaglen - yum yum. Anyway, being the jealous type, he's not so impressed with the fact that Clive is sniffing around his girlfriend. There's a brilliant denouement scene where Clive has to overpower Victor using his wits against Vic's brute force. Wits prevail of course, and Clive turns him over to the authorities - thus ensuring the continuing safety of the waif.
Clive returns triumphant to Drusilla, and his experience of danger and east end low-life seems to have renewed his vigour and his interest in...erm, PASSION. Drusilla clearly thinks so. In the final shot they kiss at the foot of the stairs, and Cutts gives us a close up of their feet. Drusilla lifts her left foot onto the first rung of the staircase in a subtle but highly erotic indication that she's going to take Clive upstairs and give his new-found potency a thorough seeing-to. Hurrah!
Really, some of the idiots who leave snotty and indifferent comments about silent films on here need their heads examining. If you aren't prepared to enter into the coded language of the medium then it's pretty obvious you won't get anything out of its products.
This film is jolly thrilling and very frank about sex if you are attentive enough to pick up on the subtlety of its representational strategies. Sure, Hitchcock worked on it, but that's probably the least interesting thing about the film. Cutts is an excellent film-maker, a fact confirmed not only by this film, but by several others.
Festival (2005)
very very clever
Unlike most of the other people posting comments here, I really thought this film was brilliant. It's the kind of excruciating, cruel comedy which many people hate but which when it is done well can be brilliant, and I think it IS done well here, although possibly not as well as it is done in Confetti (which has many of the same cast members in it). Anyone who has been to the Edinburgh festival and had a god-awful miserable time (surely more people than admit to it) will recognise the experiences of these various characters and sympathise with their predicaments...... Well, that's all I have to say about the movie, but since IMDb seems keen to encourage verbosity on here I will just respond to the various nonsense comments on the subject of Lottery Funding. It's very easy to slag off a film you don't like and then start crowing on about the taxpayers money that has been wasted on it, but you should remember that 1) it's not taxpayers money, 2) film making is a high-risk business - for every big success there are many many flops, and if it was possible to predict what is going to be successful BEFORE the release of the film, then we'd ALL be in the business and all be millionaires, 3) I'd rather have a film industry which produces some box office flops and some hits, than have NO FILM INDUSTRY AT ALL which is the alternative. There. Is that ten lines yet ed?
Comrades (1986)
Outraged!
WHY ISN't THIS FANTASTIC FILM AVAILABLE on vid or DVD?? That is my message - mainly intended for whoever holds the rights...
Btw - for those who are interested in pre-cinema stuff - Bill Douglas had a massive collection of pre-cinema artifacts (much referred to in this film) which are now housed at the Bill Douglas Center at the University of Exeter.
Kate & Leopold (2001)
Get back into a corset where you belong!
*SPOILERS*
This film looks like a lovely fluffy Rom Com. In fact it's pretty noxious. All Leopold's pronouncements about the integrity of advertising and how a meal should be savoured, are presented as evidence of his belonging to a previous, more civilized age. In fact they are the result of the fact that he belongs to an extremely privileged class. I don't suppose the Industrial workers starving in the slums of C19th Manchester did much standing up when a woman left the table, or taking time to savour the flavour of their butter.
That's not the worst of it, though. Leopold is shocked that Kate is going to go on a date without a chaperone, that she has never been properly wooed in candle light with a violinist in attendance, and that she is entertaining a slimy boss who is offering her a job but also hoping to make her. How quaintly anachronistic of him, and how charming his manners are, and how we cheer when she gives up her career to follow him back in time. The fact that she goes back to a society where she doesn't have a right to a Vote, let alone a job, to a marriage where her property automatically becomes her husband's and she no longer has any control over it whatsoever, and where Leopold can physically beat her without any legal comeback, is curiously not explored.
The advances of the C20th were social as well as technological, although you wouldn't know it watching this film, and indeed there are points where it seems like an anti-feminist manifesto. I don't care how tasty Hugh Jackman is, if my basic human rights are the price I have to pay for luurve, then I'll stay single, thank you very much!
If you want an antidote to this crap, I suggest you watch "Gaslight" (1940) - Anton Walbrook is every bit as sexy as Hugh, and Diana Wynyard hasn't done anything un-natural to her lips - ahhh! the charm of a more civilized age!
The Lure of Crooning Water (1920)
Ivy Duke is a minx!
Here she plays an actress who is stressing out due to over-work. She's sent on a rest-cure by her doting doctor, and arrives at Crooning Water (a farm) to find it stuffed with Arts and Crafts furniture - all ladder backed chairs with rush seats and fireside settles. Guy Newall is also there, looking (as he always does) like he's swallowed a couple of lemons. Ivy takes one look at his Jodhpers, though, and you know there's going to be trouble.
She ingratiates herself with his wife and teaches his four-year-old how to smoke a cigarette, but she only ever treats Guy with contempt. As a result he is putty in her hands, and during a most effective storm scene (complete with animated lightning), they get it on. The wife knows something's up as soon as she sees Ivy emerging from his inner sanctum...
Ivy and Guy, as ever, are a winning combo and some of their love scenes are startlingly erotic - with much stroking of his manly forearms.
There's an interesting flashback scene where she's plucked out of a milliner's shop by a theatrical agent and put on the stage, which apparently is an explanation of her shenanigans with Guy. As the doctor tells her "You'd flirt with the shadows of men outside a tobacconist's window". She has to give him up in the end, of course, he being wed and all, but there are plenty of other men sniffing around...
If you thought British films were lacking in emotion then think again.
Mist in the Valley (1923)
Alma on trial for murder!
Alma skips out of boarding school, expecting to come home to a lonely but doting father. In fact she finds him rather cold, and there's a cousin knocking around who she doesn't like the look of.
Meanwhile in London, our hero has lost his girl and his cash and is destitute. He tries to throw himself into the Thames, but is disuaded by a Sally Army chick with a faraway look in her eyes. He hops in an empty freight truck to sleep the night and wakes up in Devon.
Soon afterwards he finds Alma asleep on the moor having run away Adela Quested-style from a traumatic incident which she can't remember. They marry. Lots of great cottage-window and garden-gate scenes with Geraniums much in evidence. Very Hepworth. BUT it turns out Alma's dad was killed the night she ran away, and she is the chief suspect in the ensuing tension-filled courtroom ending - lots of racing off to get vital witnesses to testify, and a jolly good unexpected twist at the end.
This is classic Hepworth, much enjoyed by this fan.